PROGRESS II 



a parasite, or than the bacillus which kills him, nor 

 is a bird better adapted to air than a jelly-fish to water, 

 therefore we have no right to speak of one as higher 

 than the other, or to regard the transition from one 

 type to another as involving progress.' 



A second class of objector is prepared to admit that 

 there has been an increase of complexity, an increase 

 in the degree of organization during evolution, but 

 refuses to allow that increase of complexity has any 

 value in itself, whether biological or philosophical, 

 and accordingly refuses to dignify this trend towards 

 greater complexity by the name of progress. 



Yet a third difficulty is raised by those who ask us 

 to fix our attention on forms of life like Lingula, the 

 lamp-shell, which, though millions of years elapse, 

 do not evolve. If there exists a Law of Progress, 

 they say, how is it that such creatures are exempt 

 from its operations ? 



Finally, a somewhat similar attitude is adopted by 

 those who refuse to grant that evolution can involve 

 progress when it has, as we know, brought about 

 well-nigh innumerable degenerations. Granted, for 

 instance, they would say, that the average Crustacean 

 is in many ways an improvement upon the simple 

 form of life from which we must suppose that it 

 arose, yet we know that within the group of Crustacea 

 there are several lines of descent which have led to 

 the production of parasitic forms — ^animals in which 

 the activity and complex organization of the ancestral 



